Christmas Bake Off Biscuits

In response to a couple of requests, I decided to publish the two biscuit recipes from the Christmas Bake Off. Obviously, no cameras were allowed on set, and regular listeners will know of my current lack-of-oven status preventing me from baking a set at home, so my husband kindly grabbed a couple of screen shots of them from the program – and, of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a picture with my name on screen and the BBC logo in the corner 😀

I won’t go into all the ‘guidelines’ for these bakes, because they were many and restrictive, and also they concerned baking a particular irritation of mine, namely ‘stuff that looks like something else, usually not food-like’. I also firmly resisted suggestions to make things ‘sparkly’ and shunned all forms of edible glitter because, to my mind, if you need to label something ‘edible’, it probably shouldn’t be.

ANYHOO…

I settled on these recipes because they tasted great, were simple to prepare and decorate in a time limit, and looked attractive in a completely edible way.

Don’t wait until Christmas to give them a try, they’re delicious!

In a Mary Berry/Paul Hollywood double-handshake kinda way *resists urge to post screenshot of THAT too*. 😉

Christmas Wreath Biscuits

Makes at least 12

I must apologise for the silly ‘½ a large egg’ ingredient – if you have no pastry to glaze to use it up, make a teeny-tiny omelette or a double batch of biscuits!

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9 Comments on “Christmas Bake Off Biscuits”

Thank you! for sharing these recipes, I was so hoping you would. They looked so scrumptious and that double handshake confirmed it, so absolutely dying to give them a go. Also I love(!) that they are festive in a sort of natural/rustic way, since I have a particular hatred of boring biscuits whose main attraction is their meticulously piped and flooded icing – really don’t care how well someone can colour within the lines, we just want lots of punchy flavour! Anyways thanks again – and well done on the Christmas Bakeoff obvs!

These looked so delicious in, as you say,a completely edible way! So pleased youve put these on. I had serious’ pistachio’ envy over these at Christmastime & I could only find pale dusty yellowy ones but I see you have given us your source of the ones you buy. Thanks!

Hi Mary-Ann… thank you again for your inspiration!
As someone who has just been diagnosed with a dairy intollerance (bummer), I’m wondering if one could use cocobutter as a substitute for butter in cooking? I’m really anti margarine. Any suggestions?
Thanks xxx

Wotchers loranemar!
I’m anti-margarine too!
To answer your question, yes……BUT! I have a better suggestion: clarified butter!
When you melt butter slowly, it will eventually separate into 3 layers: some grainy casein floating on the top, a whole lot of clear butter fat in the middle, and all the white milk solids in the bottom.
You can skim off the casein and then pour the pure butter fat into a box, making sure none of the milk solids go in, then leave it to solidify and voila! Pure buttery goodness without the milk solids.
You could also buy ghee, which is used a lot in Indian cookery, which is clarified from buffalo milk. It has a wonderful perfumed aroma, but it might not suit all cooking situations. Personally, I love it and use it regularly.
So to sum up, I’d say yes, you could use it, but maybe give clarified butter/ghee a try also?
Hope this helps!
M-A 😀